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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Dreamy Customer Service

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.
--Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved movies. She was a BEAUTIFUL, intelligent, well-read, immaculately groomed, evenly-tempered girl (this is MY story, OK? I can be whatever I want to be in my story!).

This girl who loved movies loved places where she could easily obtain movies she had not seen in the theater. Because the girl was frugal and outraged by her ridiculously expensive cable bill, she had cut the cable cord many months ago and so did not have access to the On Demand world of her peers. She became a Netflix girl and watched movie after movie beautifully streaming directly to her television. She was in heaven not only because of the instant movie experience of Netflix, but also because she could watch an entire television series (e.g., Bones or Mad Men) from the comfort of her couch. The beautiful, intelligent, well-read, immaculately groomed, evenly-tempered girl felt her butt grow large with all of this couch-sitting and television watching.

Then, the girl discovered the conveniently placed RedBox where she could rent movies from the comfort of her well-placed couch and simply drive a few miles and swipe her debit card to retrieve them. The RedBox had newer releases than Netflix and, even better, she never had to talk to a soul to access the movies.

Her butt grew even larger.

One day, the girl reserved the movie Lincoln (the Blu-Ray Digital Experience version) from her local, conveniently placed RedBox. She drove her immaculately kept car (again, my story) to the magical RedBox location and, much to her horror, was met by a service technician. Tears looming in her beautifully lashed eyes, she listened to the technician explain that THIS RedBox was currently out of service. Sadly, he couldn't tell her when it would be fixed.

"But," the girl stammered. "I ALREADY RESERVED A MOVIE HERE."

"I'm so sorry," the technician answered.

Brokenhearted and let down by the one constant in her life, the girl got back in her amazingly clean car and drove aimlessly for three seconds until she realized that ANOTHER REDBOX WAS ONLY a mile or two away! The birds sang again and the girl turned up the radio and rolled the windows down so the warm and fragrant breeze could blow through her shiny, movie-star locks.

The girl was able to rent the movie Lincoln (the Blu-Ray Digital Experience version) from yet another local, conveniently placed RedBox. And her life went on smoothly, beautifully and terribly uncomplicated until she realized that, while she had only brought ONE movie home, she had PAID for two.

Frowning (something the girl never did because she needed to preserve her beautifully unlined, perfectly unfreckled face [MY STORY!]), the girl went to her computer. She pulled up RedBox customer service and found, to her utter joy, she could TYPE A QUESTION to an on-call RedBox Customer Service Representative. Within moments, the girl was connected to her new best friend, Vic.

She explained the tragic situation to Vic. Without hesitation, her new best friend apologized to her for the terrible trouble she had experienced and then, to her delight, Vic offered her TWO FREE REDBOX RENTALS. He explained that one rental was to reimburse her for the extravagant $1.60 expense of the first lost Blu-Ray Digital Experience and the SECOND was to compensate her for all her troubles.

The beautiful girl's wide smile shone through. She thought that Vic must certainly feel the warm rays of her joy through their T-1 connection. She thanked him profusely and, wiping a tear from her perfectly made-up eyes, told him that she would be forever faithful to The RedBox.

About Me

I am a recently re-married mother of two teenage boys and a stepmother to two grown women. Wow. That's STILL an opening sentence I NEVER thought I'd write. We have four dogs. And no cats. And I don't wear black all the time or carry a bunch of bags with me wherever I go. Yet.